A circumstance occurred a few days after Mr. Young’s return, which proved to be a good warning to the party for their future vigilance.  During one dark night, some Indians, eluding the watch of the sentinels, succeeded in entering the camp and moving off sixty horses.  As soon as the robbery was discovered, which had been the more easily accomplished because the trappers, not apprehending danger, had allowed the animals to take care of themselves, Mr. Young directed Kit Carson to take twelve men with the remaining horses, fourteen in number, and pursue the thieves.  Carson, in obedience to his orders, immediately started for the Sierra Nevada Mountains, following the trail of the Indians.  After travelling one hundred miles he came up with the robbers, and discovered them in the act of feasting upon horse-flesh, six of their own animals having been killed to supply the viands.  Doubtless stolen fruit made the feast all the sweeter to the savages, but Kit determined to mingle a little of the bitter as a condiment to the roasted flesh.  Gathering his men well together, and approaching very close to the foe without being discovered, he gave the order to charge.  His men needed no second command.  They fell upon the feasting savages like a thunderbolt, scattering them right and left without mercy.  Eight of the warriors were killed in the short conflict which ensued.  The remainder were allowed to escape.  With some difficulty they next succeeded in recovering all their horses, except the six which had been killed.  With their horses, and three children taken prisoners, they returned to camp.  It is unnecessary to add that, to men thus isolated in the wilderness, Kit and his party were hailed with joyful greetings when their complete success became known.  To them their horses were like the good ship to the hardy sailors on the mighty ocean.  The joyful reaction which followed such complete success was in ratio to the fears which the continuing suspense had excited.

Kit Carson, though at that day a youth in years and experience when compared with the other members of the party of which he was then an associate, had risen rapidly in the estimation of all, and had excited the admiration and enlisted in his behalf the confidence of the entire band.  When called upon to add his counsel and advice to the general fund of knowledge offered by the trappers concerning any doubtful or difficult enterprise, his masterly foresight and shrewdness, as well as clearness in attending to details, alone gave him willing auditors.  But it was the retired manner and modest deportment, which he invariably wore, that won for him the love of his associates.  Such characteristics failed not to surprise, in no ordinary degree, those who could boast a long lifetime of experience in Indian countries.  Kit Carson’s powers of quickly conceiving thoughts, on difficult emergencies, which pointed out the safest and best plans of action, “just the things that ought to be done,” and his bravery, which, in his